A computer network may be generally understood as a group of computers which are linked by a communication system. Computers generally comprise a processing unit, one or more memory devices such as random access memory (RAM) or disk storage, and an operating system for controlling the processor and memory devices. Each computer in a network may be referred to as a processing node, or simply as a node. In a network which supports a distributed processing environment, a task may be distributed across several nodes and processed in parallel.
Computer networks include various types of resources, and a given network may include several distinct resources of the same type. Network resources may comprise software or hardware. A resource state indicator may be provided in association with a network resource to indicate states of the resource.
It is often necessary for a client such as an application running on a node of a network to be informed of the current state of a particular network resource. In general it is known that this can be accomplished by having the client directly address the resource state indicator associated with the resource to acquire state information.
Prior art techniques for acquiring state information require the client to provide a request in the form of an address which indicates the location to which the request is to be routed. The client is supplied with an address for each resource state indicator and presumes that each address will be valid at all times. In the event that a resource relocates to another node, for example, in the event of a node failure, the client will be unable to continue to obtain states of that resource because the address which the client has for that resource state indicator will no longer be valid.